Polly Barton talks Porn

You spoke with 19 different people for the book – is there any one person or conversation that has stayed on your mind more than others?

There were a couple that were particularly memorable, I’d say: I think back a lot to the chat I had with the 82-year-old, and his description of what it was like to live through the sexual revolution of the sixties. There was also a conversation that I had with a very close friend in this book, who’s always been such an important figure for me in terms of shaping my thinking, and I think talking about it with her early on in the chats constituted something of a watershed moment: it was just such a liberation, to finally be speaking about this thing, which I’d previously felt I wasn’t allowed to talk about. And then at the same time, I think I also felt slightly sad for myself, that this was only happening now, late into my thirties, when I’d have benefitted so much from talking about it in my twenties. In that vein, too, I think about the chats I had with people in their twenties, which led me to understand how much more normalised it is to talk about that stuff, for a lot of people of that generation. But honestly, I think about all the conversations a lot. It’s funny, but after transcribing and editing them all, which meant listening to them over and over, I came to form such a strangely affectionate relationship with them. Even now, sometimes, I’m walking down the street or having a run and I’ll recall little bits of them, and smile. I guess they’ve become branded into my internal narrative.

Why ‘An Oral History’?

I’m tempted to answer, because it is one! By which I mean, an oral history is a form which records people speaking on a particular topic. I think there can be a sense that an oral history should somehow be narrated by the ‘insiders’, which in this case would, I suppose, be those involved in the porn industry. But this book very deliberately takes lay people as its subjects – consumers and non-consumers, if you will. I suppose I’m trying to say that we are all ‘insiders’ in some way, in that we now live in a world where porn affects all of our lives, even if we’re not directly engaging with it. You know, I think a lot of people think that if they’re ‘just’ consumers, then they don’t need to engage with it as a subject, ethically or sociologically or whatever, and I wanted to push back against that.

Actually, I thought initially about just calling it PORN, but I think that given with the Fitzcarraldo cover, the worry was that it would look a lot like an academic treatise on pornography: I felt that adding ‘oral history’ both added a bit of levity and gave people more of an insight to what they were in for. Although a lot of people comment on how misleading the title is, so maybe not everybody agrees!

You write at the start of the book: ‘If anything, the agenda I’m pushing is rather the inherent value in conversations where one is allowed to try on ideas, say things that one may later regret, and contradict oneself.’ Why is it important to leave room for views to change, particularly with complex topics like pornography?

I think that we should always be permitted to change our minds about anything, as our understanding deepens and the situation adapts and we change as people, but I think that’s particularly true when you’re talking about a topic that just isn’t spoken about. Certainly in my own case, I feel like my capacity to have opinions – certainly to articulate them, but to a certain extent even to formulate them to myself – was stunted, and immature. You know, our nuanced views about things are developed in dialogue, I really believe that. I think some of the fear about talking about porn comes from the felt sense of never having done it, the vulnerability of not having the practice to bolster you. So it feels particularly important that while we’re taking those baby steps that we’re allowed to make mistakes, and be doubtful, and so on. To be gifted with an environment that doesn’t feel like it’s going to judge you for trying on a variety of different positions, and testing whether they fit—and also acknowledging the contradictions and hypocrisies that inevitably litter the territory.

You are passionate about the need for everyone to engage with porn and have ‘real’ conversations about it. How has the response to the book so far made you feel about this? Do you think we are moving towards more open conversations about porn?

I think the response has definitely made me feel like people are hungry for those conversations. I’d say the best thing to come out of this book for me has been meeting people at events and so on who tell me unsolicitedly that the book has prompted them to start having conversations with their partner or their friends about it. A few months ago I met a man at an event in the UK who told me that, after the other members of staff at the bar where he works saw him reading the book, they started a tradition whereby, after closing time, all the staff all sit around and talk about porn for a couple of hours, in relation to some question that he’s encountered in the book that week. At two in the morning. That made my year, truly. Hearing those kinds of stories feels like the best possible outcome and it seems to suggest that it really is possible if we recognise the need to proactively start those conversations ourselves.

Polly Barton will be in conversation with Jenny Valentish on Wednesday 23 August at the Wheeler Centre. Tickets are available now.